“I think I’ll get Mr. Haverford to transfer me to you, if you’ll let me come,” he said at the close of the day when Deegan was taking off his overalls and the “Eyetalians,” as he called them, were putting the things back in the car.
“Shewer!” said Deegan, impressed by the great name of Haverford. If Eugene could accomplish that through such a far-off, wondrous personality, he must be a remarkable man himself. “Come along. I’ll be glad to have ye. Ye can just make out the O. K. blanks and the repoarts and watch over the min sich times as I’ll naat be there and—well—all told, ye’ll have enough to keep ye busy.”
Eugene smiled. This was a pleasant prospect. Big John had told him during the morning that Deegan went up and down the road from Peekskill on the main line, Chatham on the Midland Division, and Mt. Kisco on a third branch to New York City. He built wells, culverts, coal bins, building piers—small brick buildings—anything and everything, in short, which a capable foreman-mason ought to be able to build, and in addition he was fairly content and happy in his task. Eugene could see it. The atmosphere of the man was wholesome. He was like a tonic—a revivifying dynamo to this sickly overwrought sentimentalist.
That night he went home to Angela full of the humor and romance of his new situation. He liked the idea of it. He wanted to tell her about Deegan—to make her laugh. He was destined unfortunately to another kind of reception.
For Angela, by this time, had endured the agony of her discovery to the breaking point. She had listened to his pretences, knowing them to be lies, until she could endure it no longer. In following him she had discovered nothing, and the change in his work would make the chase more difficult. It was scarcely possible for anyone to follow him, for he himself did not know where he would be from day to day. He would be here, there, and everywhere. His sense of security as well as of his unfairness made him sensitive about being nice in the unimportant things. When he thought at all he was ashamed of what he was doing—thoroughly ashamed. Like the drunkard he appeared to be mastered by his weakness, and the psychology of his attitude is so best interpreted. He caressed her sympathetically, for he thought from her drawn, weary look that she was verging on some illness. She appeared to him to be suffering from worry for him, overwork, or approaching malady.
But Eugene in spite of his unfaithfulness did sympathize with Angela greatly. He appreciated her good qualities—her truthfulness, economy, devotion and self-sacrifice in all things which related to him. He was sorry that his own yearning for freedom crossed with her desire for simple-minded devotion on his part. He could not love her as she wanted him to, that he knew, and yet he was at times sorry for it, very. He would look at her when she was not looking at him, admiring her industry, her patience, her pretty figure, her geniality in the face of many difficulties, and wish that she could have had a better fate than to have met and married him.
Because of these feelings on his part for her he could not bear to see her suffer. When she appeared to be ill he could not help drawing near to her, wanting to know how she was, endeavoring to make her feel better by those sympathetic, emotional demonstrations which he knew meant so much to her. On this particular evening, noting the still drawn agony of her face, he was moved to insist. “What’s the matter with you, Angelface, these days? You look so tired. You’re not right. What’s troubling you?”
“Oh, nothing,” replied Angela wearily.
“But I know there is,” he replied. “You can’t be feeling well. What’s ailing you? You’re not like yourself at all. Won’t you tell me, sweet? What’s the trouble?”
He was thinking because Angela said nothing that it must be a real physical illness. Any emotional complaint vented itself quickly.
“Why should you care?” she asked cautiously, breaking her self-imposed vow of silence. She was thinking that Eugene and this woman, whoever she was, were conspiring to defeat her and that they were succeeding. Her voice had changed from one of weary resignation to subtle semi-concealed complaint and offense, and Eugene noted it. Before she could add any more, he had observed, “Why shouldn’t I? Why, how you talk! What’s the matter now?”
Angela really did not intend to go on. Her query was dragged out of her by his obvious sympathy. He was sorry for her in some general way. It made her pain and wrath all the greater. And his additional inquiry irritated her the more.
“Why should you?” she asked weepingly. “You don’t want me. You don’t like me. You pretend sympathy when I look a little bad, but that’s all. But you don’t care for me. If you could get rid of me, you would. That is so plain.”
“Why, what are you talking about?” he asked, astonished. Had she found out anything? Was the incident of the scraps of paper really closed? Had anybody been telling her anything about Carlotta? Instantly he was all at sea. Still he had to pretend.
“You know I care,” he said. “How can you say that?”
“You don’t. You know you don’t!” she flared up suddenly. “Why do you lie? You don’t care. Don’t touch me. Don’t come near me. I’m sick of your hypocritical pretences! Oh!” And she straightened up with her finger nails cutting into her palms.
Eugene at the first expression of disbelief on her part had laid his hand soothingly on her arm. That was why she had jumped away from him. Now he drew back, nonplussed, nervous, a little defiant. It was easier to combat rage than sorrow; but he did not want to do either.
“What’s the matter with you?” he asked, assuming a look of bewildered innocence. “What have I done now?”
“What haven’t you done, you’d better ask. You dog! You coward!” flared Angela. “Leaving me to stay out in Wisconsin while you go running around with a shameless woman. Don’t deny it! Don’t dare to deny it!”—this apropos of a protesting movement on the part of Eugene’s head—”I know all! I know more than I want to know. I know how you’ve been acting. I know what you’ve been doing. I know how you’ve been lying to me. You’ve been running around with a low, vile wretch of a woman while I have been staying out in Blackwood eating my heart out, that’s what you’ve been doing. Dear Angela! Dear Angelface! Dear Madonna Doloroso! Ha! What have you been calling her, you lying, hypocritical coward! What names have you for her, Hypocrite! Brute! Liar! I know what you’ve been doing. Oh, how well I know! Why was I ever born?—oh, why, why?”
Her voice trailed off in a wail of agony. Eugene stood there astonished to the point of inefficiency. He could not think of a single thing to do or say. He had no idea upon what evidence she based her complaint. He fancied that it must be much more than had been contained in that little note which he had torn up. She had not seen that—of that he was reasonably sure—or was he? Could she have taken it out of the box while he was in the bath and then put it back again? This sounded like it. She had looked very bad that night. How much did she know? Where had she secured this information? Mrs. Hibberdell? Carlotta? No! Had she seen her? Where? When?
“You’re talking through your hat,” he said aimlessly and largely in order to get time. “You’re crazy! What’s got into you, anyhow? I haven’t been doing anything of the sort.”
“Oh, haven’t you!” she sneered. “You haven’t been meeting her at bridges and road houses and street cars, have you? You liar! You haven’t been calling her ‘Ashes of Roses’ and ‘River Nymph’ and ‘Angel Girl.'” Angela was making up names and places out of her own mind. “I suppose you used some of the pet names on her that you gave to Christina Channing, didn’t you? She’d like those, the vile strumpet! And you, you dog, pretending to me—pretending sympathy, pretending loneliness, pretending sorrow that I couldn’t be here! A lot you cared what I was doing or thinking or suffering. Oh, I hate you, you horrible coward! I hate her! I hope something terrible happens to you. If I could get at her now I would kill her and you both—and myself. I would! I wish I could die! I wish I could die!”
Eugene was beginning to get the measure of his iniquity as Angela interpreted it. He could see now how cruelly he had hurt her. He could see now how vile what he was doing looked in her eyes. It was bad business—running with other women—no doubt of it. It always ended in something like this—a terrible storm in which he had to sit by and hear himself called brutal names to which there was no legitimate answer. He had heard of this in connection with other people, but he had never thought it would come to him. And the worst of it was that he was guilty and deserving of it. No doubt of that. It lowered him in his own estimation. It lowered her in his and her own because she had to fight this way. Why did he do it? Why did he drag her into such a situation? It was breaking down that sense of pride in himself which was the only sustaining power a man had before the gaze of the world. Why did he let himself into these situations? Did he really love Carlotta? Did he want pleasure enough to endure such abuse as this? This was a terrible scene. And where would it end? His nerves were tingling, his brain fairly aching. If he could only conquer this desire for another type and be faithful, and yet how dreadful that seemed! To confine himself in all his thoughts to just Angela! It was not possible. He thought of these things, standing there enduring the brunt of this storm. It was a terrible ordeal, but it was not wholly reformatory even at that.